California pension reform is threatened by word games: Editorial

Hope was high that by this month, Californians would have begun a serious debate about public-employee pensions and whether a ballot measure offers a solution to the state’s and cities’ looming crisis.

Well, so much for that, sorry to say. Signature-gathering to put the Pension Reform Act of 2015 before voters is on hold while supporters go to court to challenge misleading wording put in place by state Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris. The wording must be set before the effort begins to fill petitions with the more than 800,000 names required by June 5 to qualify the proposition for the November ballot.

The delay could force San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed and the measure’s other official backers to put off the effort until 2016 — as unfunded pension liabilities of state and local governments continue to climb.

The legal challenge having been filed Thursday in Sacramento Superior Court, Californians should wish for a quick ruling that thwarts Harris’ political gamesmanship.

The attorney general, who by law has the authority to draft titles and summaries for state ballot measures, issued wording a month ago saying in part that the proposed amendment “eliminates constitutional protections for vested pension and retiree healthcare benefits for current public employees, including teachers, nurses, and peace officers, for future work performed.”

“Eliminates” — that’s loaded language. A poll commissioned by a labor group last year showed voter opposition rises if the initiative is described as seeking to “eliminate” public workers’ pensions. Reed is afraid that’s what readers would gather from Harris’ wording, in which “eliminates constitutional protections” and “for future work” are separated by the full length of the sentence and four commas.

In fact, the measure would allow state and local government employers to use collective bargaining to reduce current workers’ future benefits. But (and this is vital) it would protect the benefits that workers have already earned.

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To put it in broad terms, the measure would give the state and its cities more power to control workers’ pension and health care costs. It’s modeled on a measure in Reed’s San Jose that passed with 70 percent of the vote.

San Jose faced massive cuts in police and other services despite the community’s relative affluence. The story is familiar for leaders of cities all around us, raising the specter of more bankruptcies like San Bernardino’s. The rise in retirement costs is unsustainable; government employees should worry as much as the rest of us, because when those costs strangle city budgets, their jobs will be endangered.

Sometimes ballot word games are amusing, like when an incumbent politician describes himself as an “independent business owner” or an initiative is set up in such a confusing way that a “yes” vote means “no.”

This is not one of those times. Harris has played political hardball this way before, helping to derail pension-reform efforts in 2012. The Democrat knows that even if a judge orders the initiative wording revised, she may have succeeded in delaying signature-gathering and keeping big-city mayors from joining the fight.